


Lost and Found

by mysweetbologna, thedragonbot



Series: Lost and Found [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Brainwashing, F/M, Memory Loss, Winter Soldier AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 17:12:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14877956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysweetbologna/pseuds/mysweetbologna, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedragonbot/pseuds/thedragonbot
Summary: It took Garrus three years to finally starting boxing up his grief over the death of Jane Shepard. Now a Council Spectre, he buries his regret underneath his work. An assignment to investigate a bio-engineered plague on Omega manages to turn everything upside down. Garrus comes face to face with something he never expected, something that threatens to break him even more than his friend’s death. Torn in two between what Garrus knows to be possible and what he sees before him might just be the end of his world.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> A HUUUUGE thank you to my beta, magpie-song on Tumblr. Without you, it would not be complete and as great as it has become.
> 
> Another thanks is in order to thedragonbot for the wonderful art! I'm glad I got to meet you and I love what you've done for my prized project. 
> 
> I've made a playlist that I will link to. The songs are organized by chapter.

                                                      

[Lost and Found Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/1234702229/playlist/7DGMZ8VqtJovsUIPT53xNQ?si=G3aSa4z0Q-2yco_FZQIZ7A)

On the first anniversary of Jane Shepard’s death, the Citadel stood at a stand still. Businesses and restaurants across the Presidium and the wards closed down out of respect for the woman that saved them all. ANN broadcasted footage of Shepard’s memorial service to every vid screen and omni tool that tuned in, repeating her accomplishments one after the other until all the words were jumbled together and every civilian knew her service record by heart. They regaled her for surviving the raid on Mindoir, for making it off of Akuze after the rest of her team was slaughtered, for saving most of her crew after the Normandy exploded. But no one knew the truth of the Normandy except for the crew and a strictly worded non-disclosure agreement forbade them from talking about it. In all rights, Shepard was a goddamned hero and not a minute passed on the anniversary of her death that people did not mourn her.

On the second anniversary of Jane Shepard’s death, no one on the Citadel stood still. The ANN briefly mentioned Jane Shepard, playing a short memorial montage of her life, then moved on. Businesses and restaurants opened like it was any other day without an ounce of reflection. Those who knew and continued to grieve were furious; the galaxy forever changed the day that Jane Shepard died alone floating in space over the icy crags of Alchera. How could anyone forget the sacrifices that were made despite the constant beat down and ridicule and disbelief? A select few, namely a quarian, two humans, a turian, a krogan, and an asari, clinked their glasses together before swallowing their grief with shots of whiskey. Shepard’s spirit lived on in them in the nasty after-taste of her favorite drink, mixed with a nice dose of survivor’s guilt.

It was on a different anniversary, the third anniversary of the day Sovereign attacked the Citadel, that Garrus Vakarian tried to box up his grief once and for all. He needed to file it away, put it right next to the box that contained all the things he didn’t want to feel about his mother’s death, which sat next to the one where he tried to shove in the guilt and the blame he took on. Now a jaded Spectre, much to his father’s increasing disappointment, Garrus let all the good parts of himself be buried in that box with Jane Shepard, leaving behind a man who took no prisoners and did what he had to do. The job lost its appeal rather quickly without Shepard beside him, discussing morality and what was the _right thing_ _to do._

He pretended it was easy, that all he had to do was turn it off like a switch, which everyone knew was a lie, especially Tali, who knew the inside of his mind almost as well as Shepard had. But none of the Normandy crew questioned it; one person’s pain was not the same as another and they were all still too shattered to know how to care for one another. It was easier to go their separate ways, check in with an email every so often, then to actually give a shit and seek help. Besides, Garrus was too busy running around the galaxy for the Council to take the time to sit and think about Jane Shepard anymore. Else, she would consume his every thought.

“Today marks the third year since the Reaper attack on the Citadel. On this day, Spectre Jane Shepard, Alliance Commander, stopped a rogue Spectre from destroying the Citadel. The memorial on the Presidium for the lives lost will be using donations from this week’s visits to continue funding rebuilding efforts in the wards. Shepard, whose death two and a half years ago-”

Garrus switched the feed off, refusing to listen anymore to the propaganda and bullshit that the Citadel stations called news. They got off on claiming Shepard as their savior, but refused to acknowledge the real reason behind the attack. Everyone in the Milky Way played a waiting game whether they knew it or not and it was only a matter of time before they ended up on the losing side. He cared very little anymore about the fate of the galaxy. Why should he when they didn’t listen after being attacked by a fucking Reaper? The signs were there and then they too were swept away into a much bigger box that floated among the stars, the smaller pieces left behind as tokens of their fortune. His father assured him that that was the way of the world: the public doesn’t give a shit and they always ask what has been done for them lately.

His ship flew en route to Omega after receiving an anonymous tip that someone released a bioengineered plague that targeted everyone except for humans. The irony didn’t fail to escape him: sending a turian to an infectious heap of asteroids where he had a pretty high chance of dying. Maybe if he did, he would get to see her again. That thought alone made the mission all that much more appealing to him, so of course he accepted. Garrus suspected that the origins of the plague came from Cerberus, the notoriously human-first organization, however the motive was missing. What did they stand to gain from killing off hundreds? It was so small scale compared to their other operations: enormous facilities whose experiments were haunting and mysterious.

The Cydonia, a small turian craft given to Garrus after making Spectre, landed with little fanfare upon reaching Omega. His one-man ship was perfect for his missions. It was stealthy, small, and afforded him the luxury of operating on his own which was just how Garrus preferred it. An unfamiliar Batarian stood guard at the entrance that took him into the inner ring of Omega, though after one look at Garrus in his Spectre grade armor and the pistol on his hip, he moved aside without a word. Perhaps the last guard passed on the word to stay the fuck out of his way. It was better for both parties that neither spoke: the lawlessness of Omega pushed Garrus past the point of agitation and Aria’s men hated his visits to her pisshole of a society.

Within moments of setting foot in the lower markets near Afterlife, Garrus’s omni tool alerted him to a message from the asari herself: a demand to meet in her club to discuss a delicate matter. He took the message at face value, more than likely she knew exactly why he was there. Garrus turned on his heel in the middle of the crowds and made his way back toward the club. The elcor that stood outside didn’t even bother with him, barely nodding his head in the direction of the door to Afterlife. Individuals of all species loitered in the hallway leading into the club, most of them intoxicated and struggling to make their way out. A human man lumbered in his direction, fists raised and ready for action, but Garrus merely side stepped around him.

Finding Aria once he was inside Afterlife was easy enough: just follow the string of guards that lead up to Aria’s private area where she took care of all her business. The loud thumping of the bass heavy songs was ingenious really when it came to meeting with people, or even killing them. Unless you were sitting right next to her, not a word could be made out. Aria was examining her fingernails when Garrus approached.

“Have you come to take care of my little problem?” She glanced up at him, disinterest written plainly across her face. A turian guard pulled his gun in a little closer, finger resting on the trigger.

“No. I’m here on Council orders.”

“I’m sure that your orders and my problem are the same thing, Vakarian. Take a seat.” Aria resumed the inspection of her hands, a flicker of irritation passing over her eyes before disappearing just as quick. Garrus sat on a couch opposite her: close enough to hear her, but far enough so as not to cause offence. “Someone is causing trouble down in the slums. Some kind of bioengineered plague was unleashed, but you already know all of that. I need it taken care of before it spreads to the rest of the station and I need it done fast.”

“Is there a cure?”

“I don’t fucking know, and I don’t care. Just put a stop to it.”

“Any other information you can give me?” Garrus shifted, leaning forward so that his elbows rested on his knees, waiting for whatever Aria might have to tell him.

“There’s a salarian, a Dr. Mordin Solus, who runs the med clinic in the slums. You might talk to him to see if he knows anything about who did it.”

With a nod of her head, Aria dismissed Garrus. He made quick work of leaving the club; too much of the ear-bursting music always gave him a headache. As he started making his way to the slums entrance, a flash of red caught his attention. Garrus froze in the middle of the markets, eyes wildly searching the crowds for that red. He would recognize that color anywhere, because it was the color of Jane Shepard’s hair. His heart raced, adrenaline coursing through his body as he began to push through the sea of people shopping in the markets. Shepard was nowhere to be found, because surprise, she was still dead. It was all a cosmic joke to show him how wrong he was for boxing her up like everyone else in his life, forcing him to acknowledge the unspoken feelings. Standing stationary in the middle of the market, Garrus never felt more alone than he did in that moment.

The entrance to the slums was blocked by another turian, who also merely stepped to the side to let Garrus pass. He might have to consider thanking Aria later once he finds the person responsible for the whole mess. With his helmet on to filter out the poisonous air, Garrus began his search in the Omega Slums.

Dead bodies littered the walkways no matter what direction Garrus turned. The few that still lived hacked and coughed, curled in on themselves. It was almost impossible to tell the difference between the dead and the living until one of them twitched, the slight movement eerie and unsettling. One batarian thankfully was lucid enough to give him directions to the med clinic, to which Garrus repaid him with a spare medi-gel packet, a stim, and a promise to send help. With the batarian’s instructions, it proved much easier to find the med clinic. Inside, the hacking and coughing continued, but medics flitted back and forth between them, administering all kinds of drugs and treatments.

“Where can I find Dr. Solus?”

One of the medics pointed down the short hallway, too busy to answer verbally. Dr. Mordin Solus was hard to miss, even hunched over his patient, his tall stature surprised Garrus. He continued to work on the patient, talking out loud to his assistant all the while. Garrus stepped into the room and cleared his throat, trying to catch the doctor’s attention.

“Come to help? Plague dangerous to many species. Human and vorcha exempt. I have a cure. Cannot dispense it myself.”

“I’m just here to-”

“To find the person who did it. Yes, yes, I know. Spread the cure. Will tell you what I know.”

Garrus sighed. This wasn’t part of the plan at all. All he wanted was some information so he could go on his way, find the culprit, and get away from this hellhole and back to his ship. He certainly deserved a little vacation after this: maybe a trip to the Citadel laid in his future. Mordin pressed the cure into Garrus’s outstretched hand.

“Take it to environmental controls. Through the door. On other side of clinic.” Mordin looked over his shoulder, squinting when he saw Garrus. “Good luck.”

Getting to the environmental controls room was easy enough, but once Garrus was inside, the true battle began. Vorcha came up out of the woodworks, their weapons drawn as soon as he entered the room. By the time he made it to the first room and finished reactivating the controls system, his shields were starting to fail from the onslaught of gunfire. They had him cornered in that room, waiting patiently for Garrus to make a move. Outnumbered ten to one, Garrus saw his opening and made a run for it toward the second room. Within seconds, the environmental controls started to administer the cure for the plague. Now that that was taken care of, all Garrus had to focus on was returning to Mordin to find out what he knew.

That was easier said than done.

Garrus stepped outside of the environmental controls room and was met with a roundhouse kick to his torso that sent him flying backward into the hall he just walked out of. Using his hands and the wall to support himself, Garrus made his way back up to his feet, only to be faced with an uppercut punch to his helmet. The bottom latch, now broken, came undone and the helmet flew off, dropping to the ground behind him. His attacker was a short figure, female, probably human from the shape of her helmet. They swung out again, quick with lightning speed. Garrus ducked just in time, spinning away back toward the center of the room. He took several steps back to put some distance between himself and the woman and reached for his pistol. She raised her gun and took a quick shot. Pain spread throughout Garrus’s hand, then freezing ice. His right hand was frozen to the grip of his gun, a layer of ice crusting over them.

He wanted to kick himself for being distracted. Seeing what was Shepard’s ghost in the markets still rattled him, enough so to give his attacker and advantage over him. Garrus wasn’t focused, and that would kill him if he didn’t get it together quickly. The woman stalked toward him, gun still pointed at him, this time square in the chest. Garrus struggled under the ice that held his hand captive, trying to break free from its hold so he could fight back. The ice barely cracked from the exertion. If he could just switch to incendiary ammo…

His attacker made a move to strike again, and this time Garrus was more than ready, blocking the hit with his free arm. He swept his leg out, knocking hers from underneath of her. She landed on her back, then with all the grace of a well-practiced fighter, jumped back to her feet, ready to go again. Garrus slipped to the left, then ducked, as she came at him with a combo of strikes, armored hands missing by mere inches. His omni tool rang out as the pair fought, alerting him to a call from the queen of Omega herself. Garrus rejected the call, a little annoyed that she chose now to try and contact him. Couldn’t she just send a message like everyone else? The omni tool pinged once. Good. He’d go talk to Aria later once he dealt with this woman throwing punches at him.

She waited for him to tire out, that much was obvious from the way she kept striking at him, causing him to duck and move around so quickly. It almost reminded him of training with Shepard on the Normandy, the way she would punch and kick and punch some more. But this woman wasn’t Shepard. She possessed so much more strength and moved with a deadly, unearthly speed that Shepard never had. Taking a page from Shepard’s book, Garrus started to fake it, pretending that the constant movement and his heavy arm was truly making him tired, letting this woman think she was winning.

At the sight of his slower movements, the attacker slowed hers as well, making more calculated attacks that would bring him down. Garrus left his left side open, his arm covering his face in a mock attempt to block any impending punches. He waited for her to take the opportunity to hit him. Bless the Spirits, it worked. The woman took a half step back and swung her other leg out in an arching kick. Garrus, ready for it, threw his arm down around her leg, trapping her and knocking her off balance. She fell onto her back again on the grated floor, struggling under Garrus’s iron tight grip, until Garrus too, came tumbling down, landing on top of her. Their armor clattered against each other as they grappled, one trying to gain advantage over the other. The force of Garrus’s fall shattered the ice around his hand and pistol allowing him to get a better hold on the writhing angry woman beneath him.

Amidst the struggle, Garrus managed to reach for the latches on her helmet, prying them open one by one. Before he got to the last one, the woman brought her knee up between them, throwing Garrus off balance and over onto the floor, precariously close to the edge of the walkway that hung over a steep drop. She climbed on top of him, straddling his torso as she wrapped her hands around his throat, squeezing her thumbs tightly to cut of his circulation. After several failed attempts at bucking her off, Garrus reached for that last latch on her helmet while she was distracted with strangling him. The latch came undone easily and he ripped the helmet off. It was at that moment Garrus knew he should have never helped Mordin, shouldn’t have talked to Aria, fuck, he should have never came to this fucking station.

Jane Shepard glared at him with the most intense hatred that Garrus had ever felt in his entire life. He had to be imagining it, or the loss of air to his lungs was making him delirious. Everyone had promised him that she died during the destruction of the Normandy while saving Joker. Granted, her body was never recovered. But there shouldn’t have been a body left after it floated around in space eventually falling down to Alchera where the atmosphere would have burned her up before she even landed. Everything inside Garrus told him that this was impossible, that there was no chance in hell that this could actually be Jane. Yet she still sat on top of him, killing him within an inch of his life.

Garrus threw his balled up fist up in an uppercut, hitting Jane under her chin. Her hands left his throat and Garrus gasped for air that flooded his lungs. He rose to his feet and reached for his pistol at the same time as he saw Jane reach for hers. She stood on the opposite edge of the skywalk, her free hand rubbing her jaw thoughtfully, that hateful glare still fixated on Garrus. This wasn’t right. She wasn’t really Shepard. She couldn’t be, not with how she tried to kill him. Garrus called out to her.

“Shepard?” A moment of silence passed between them. Irritation flitted across Jane’s face, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion. Garrus’s heart thudded heavily in his chest as the silence prolonged itself further. She started to lower her gun.

“Who the fuck is Shepard?”

His heart cracked in two as he shot her square in the chest and she went tumbling off of the skywalk.

 


	2. Part 2

Days passed and turned into months during which Garrus’s carefully crafted facade started to fracture around him. Shepard’s reappearance scrambled Garrus’s reality so badly that he struggled to figure out which way was up. Those old feelings, which weren’t really all that old, came bubbling up through the cracks, and Garrus was forced to confront them once more. There were few things in life Garrus regretted, but hiding how absolutely in love he was with Shepard reigned at the top of that list. The second one was shooting Shepard on that skywalk. He doubted that she was truly dead this time; if she came back from surviving an explosion, she’d survive a fall. 

Garrus organized everything in his mind, one labeled box after another. When Shepard’s started bleeding out from its tattered edges, his life took a serious nosedive. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t focus on the mission, couldn’t even fucking bare to answer the messages from Tali on his omni tool. He did find himself scouring every single message that Shepard sent him when he served on the Normandy, and the few he received after. Most of them were responses to his mission reports, a few with updates about life after he left the Normandy. His favorites though were the ones she sent that had random facts or jokes in them. And then there was the last one. Garrus found it difficult to read tone into written messages, but if he had to guess it was somber, melancholic even. He didn’t read it after seeing Shepard on Omega; he didn’t need to. The final message sat untouched in his archive since he’d received it two days before her death. There was no need to revisit it. Her words for him were burned into his brain.

Garrus moved restlessly about his apartment, shifting from one chair to another, to lying on his bed, back to a chair again, all the while staring at nothing while the time passed him by. The Council didn’t have any pressing missions for him and his own investigations were at a standstill. Tracking down Shepard was his top priority, but the only lead he had written down had been deleted and rewritten so many times that he wasn’t sure which direction to go anymore. Cerberus cells were popping up more than in the last three years while entire colonies were disappearing. None of it made any sense. Surely Cerberus wasn’t kidnapping the very race they wanted to elevate. 

His apartment was small, just like the Cydonia, with a compact kitchen, bathroom, and a combined living space for his bedroom and dining area. It was the same apartment he lived in when he worked for C-SEC prior to joining the Normandy. The furniture was the same, the food in the fridge more or less the same, and the empty feeling that surrounded him every time he stepped inside was same as well. None of the Normandy crew ever visited, only because Garrus never told them where he lived. Especially since Shepard’s death, he didn’t want his private space to be invaded by others trying to comfort him and share his grief. He preferred to remember her in solitude while staring at the blank walls of his apartment. Everything about his apartment lacked personality, which made it easier to leave all of it behind. 

After cleaning his rifle for the tenth time that week, Garrus threw the cleaning supplies down with a frustrated groan. The walls of his apartment were starting to drive him insane with how they seemed to close in on him more and more as the days passed. He tried to recall the last time he left his apartment and couldn’t remember; groceries were delivered to him on a weekly basis. The artificial sunlight of the Citadel sounded enticing after his weeks-long, self-imposed imprisonment. Just a short walk to a few shops and then he would come back, Garrus told himself. A few minutes and a change of clothes later, Garrus was out the door and making his way down the walkway. 

The walkways were bustling with traffic, people going about their business like every other day. Garrus stopped at a weapons mods shop, browsing their stock of sights while the salesperson, a young female turian, assisted another customer. They sold pretty decent mods, better than the ones you would find at most other stores, but they didn’t compete with the custom ones Garrus built for his rifle. While most of what Garrus built probably could be declared illegal, thankfully his spectre status kept that from happening. Garrus brushed off the female turian’s offer of assistance, insisting that he was only interested in looking, not purchasing. The disappointed look on her face was enough to convince Garrus to leave; no matter her intentions, he had zero interest in making conversation past what was necessary. 

Garrus continued browsing various shops, never buying, never staying for long, merely enjoying the activity of being outside after so long. The last shop that Garrus came to was one he didn’t remember being there, probably because he never bothered to look at it in all of his other trips to this part of the ward. When he stepped inside, Garrus was immediately overwhelmed by the art that covered every inch of the shop’s walls. Paintings and posters of all varying sizes and vastly different subjects grabbed his attention. Garrus paused in front of one particular painting, a muted view of a sun setting over a mountainous horizon. Something about the painting felt so intimately familiar despite the fact that Garrus couldn’t identify the view or even the artist. Not that he really knew a lot about art to begin with. A door opened at the back of the shop and a small human man walked in. He stopped in his tracks once he saw Garrus, a plainly obvious look of shock etched on his face. 

“Oh- I- I’m terribly sorry! I didn’t realize I had a customer! You haven’t been waiting long, have you?” 

“No, just arrived actually.”

“Oh thank God.” The man shuffled forward, wiping his hands nervously on the legs of his pants. When he saw the painting that Garrus was looking at, he grinned widely. “Ah yes, a wonderful piece we have here. Turian artist, brilliant, I tell you. Do you recognize the view?”

“I’m afraid I don’t. Something about it seems so familiar though.” 

“It’s from Earth. The Rocky Mountains specifically.” 

The words were no sooner out of the man’s mouth before Garrus was rocked with a memory. Shepard, sitting on top of the Mako while Garrus worked on the engine, was in one of her rare vulnerable moments where she talked about her life before joining the Alliance. She had asked him about his favorite place he ever visited and Garrus was at a loss. Besides Palaven and the Citadel, Garrus couldn’t remember traveling anywhere else that wasn’t for his mandatory military service, and he didn’t count that. Garrus said as much and Shepard looked absolutely upset on his behalf. She started telling him about all the places he should visit, namely Earth. He remembered with clear detail Shepard’s description of her visit to Earth with her parents when she was a child and their tour across one of the many countries there. Shepard mentioned that seeing the mountains remained her favorite memory of that trip and she showed Garrus a picture that she saved to her omni tool. 

While the landscape in the painting and the mountain view in Shepard’s photo weren’t the same, Garrus was almost certain that they were from the same mountain range that Shepard had told him about over three years ago. Garrus wished that he could see it himself, or even better, wished he could see it with Shepard. Because that would mean the horror show on Omega never happened, that Shepard did not in fact die, and that he stopped being a chicken shit and finally told her how he felt about her. 

“How much for the painting?”

“I’m sorry?” The man’s smile transformed into confusion. Garrus pointed at the painting and asked again.

“How much?” Garrus waited as the man pulled up something on his omni tool, typing furiously until he found what he was looking for. He glanced up and down a few times between the omni tool and Garrus before clearing his throat. 

“Fifteen thousand credits, um, Sir.” 

Garrus turned and looked at the painting again, contemplative. The money wasn’t really an issue; the Council supplied him with more funds than he truly knew what to do with and he wasn’t much of a spender either. The question was if he was willing to pay the price to either prolong his suffering, or if the soft rays of sunlight peeking over the mountain tops would help him heal. It was a slippery slope no matter which path he chose. But knowing that Shepard lived, albeit not the Shepard he once knew, stirred all of those old emotions and Garrus was getting tired of stifling them. 

“I’ll take it.”

Garrus wandered around the ward for another hour after purchasing the painting and having it delivered to his apartment by the shop. Even in the evening hours, people were everywhere, running last minute errands before all the shops closed for the evening. He stopped inside a bakery that specialized in dextro pastries and picked up a few that reminded him of his mother’s cooking. As Garrus walked back outside, he became instantly alert. The soft leathery skin on the back of his neck prickled: someone was watching him. Careful not to give them up or alert anyone else that might be paying attention, Garrus opened his bag of pastries and began to eat as he continued his stroll down the walkway back to his apartment. 

The closer Garrus got to his apartment, the more uneasy he felt. He stepped into an alley just to see if they would follow. This definitely wasn’t how he imagined the rest of his day going, but it sure beat cleaning his rifle again. It was a little thrilling being hunted and Garrus felt adrenaline start to rush through his body again. He could continue to let them follow him, to see how devoted they were to their chase. Or he could turn it around on them, find them, and teach them a lesson. Garrus decided on the former; he could use a little excitement in his life that wasn’t Shepard’s sudden and brutal reappearance. 

Just like that, the feeling disappeared. Garrus paused, the excitement he started to feel transitioning into something else. What had he done to lose their attention so suddenly? Everything within him screamed that this was wrong, that he couldn’t trust the false security, that this was exactly how shitty horror vids always killed off the main character. No amount of training prepared Garrus for how suddenly vulnerable he felt standing alone in that alley with his bag of pastries and no weapon. Garrus cursed himself for being so fucking stupid as to leave his apartment unprepared: no weapon, no armor, no way to protect himself except for his hands and his quick thinking. 

“How do you know me?”

Garrus whipped around and saw Shepard standing at the end of the alley. It only made sense that it was Shepard tailing him. How she managed to go by unnoticed on the Citadel amazed him though; everyone knew what she looked like. The fading artificial light of the evening made it difficult to make out the details of Shepard’s face and body, but what he could see shocked him. Somehow during their fight on Omega, Garrus had missed the patchwork of scars that covered her cheeks and their faint red glow. Her hair was longer and wilder than before, fiery red and curly and begging to be touched. When Garrus met her gaze he expected that same unadulterated hatred to be in her eyes, but he found something else in them. They were wild and injured, mistrusting, and curious. Something in her changed since they last met on Omega. 

This time, Shepard wasn’t the threat; Garrus was. 

How to answer her question though? He didn’t know what her level of knowledge was involving the Alliance, the Normandy, or even her past life. Was she even aware of what had happened to her? Garrus could only imagine the worst, that upon dying, or almost dying, her memory of who she was disappeared alongside every good part of her. But if he knew anything about the good part of a person being gone, it was that it was never truly gone forever. He needed to know what happened to her. He needed Shepard back.

“We used to work together.”

Shepard narrowed her eyes, taking a few steps closer so that they stood five feet apart from each other. Garrus recognized the killing machine that he fought on Omega, her unstoppable strength and power evident in every movement of her body. All of that in his Shepard was a frightening, terrifying concept. She seemed to be searching for words, looking everywhere around the alley except for at Garrus. Perhaps she was trying to piece together how Garrus fit into this current existence of hers.

“When?”

“Over three years ago.”

“I don’t-” Shepard paused, her eyes making contact with Garrus’s once more. “I don’t remember that. Why don’t I remember that?”

Garrus heard the struggle in the way she spoke, the familiar deep tone of her voice softening in confusion. He wished he had all the answers for her so that he could bring her back. Hell, so he could just feel like himself again too. Nothing about either of them was normal anymore though and he doubted that they would be for a very long time, if ever. Tragedy had a funny way of wreaking so much havoc on your life that it was nie impossible to find your way back. Garrus was forced to work with what he had, just like this new and alien Shepard. 

Shepard rocked back and forth on the heels of her feet, a nervous habit Garrus had seen so many times before she died and seeing it now was a breath of fresh air in their otherwise stale circumstances. Garrus’s hands trembled at his sides, restraining them from reaching out. With only two steps he could be standing right in front of her, able to hold her and feel her again. Instead, despite the whining in his heart, Garrus kept his feet cemented exactly where he stood. Spooking Shepard was the last thing he wanted to do, especially since she came to him. 

What worried Garrus about standing in the alley with Shepard was that she had tried to kill him only a few months ago. It was also safe to assume that she was responsible for the plague that spread through the slums of Omega. Garrus wanted to welcome her back into his life with open arms, but his duty to stop her overshadowed that. This was a Shepard that killed hundreds of innocents, unafraid of the consequences. Whoever she worked for, they were able to keep her involvement under wraps. It was pretty obvious who employed Shepard but Garrus still wanted to hear it from her own mouth. 

“Who do you work for?” His question was met with a smirk. 

“You haven’t figured it out yet? I’m surprised, with you being a spectre and all.” Shepard crossed her arms over her chest, hip cocked to one side. The spirits were truly taunting Garrus by placing this woman who was the Shepard he remembered but also not quite Shepard in front of him. Garrus didn’t usually believe in fate, preferring that tangible actions steered his life. But this whole thing was so goddamn unusual that he didn’t know what to believe anymore. “Cerberus pays me well.”

“Why are you working for them? You hated their agenda.” 

“They’re all I remember. And they won’t tell me about before I started working for them.”

“So? That’s not an excuse. The Shepard that I knew wouldn’t have accepted that so easily. She would have put up a fight, would have done something!” Shepard’s chest heaved with her heavy breathing, anger written very clearly across her face. Antagonizing her was the only way Garrus could think of to get a response out of the Cerberus Shepard.

“You don’t know what I’ve been through. What I still go through. Ever since you shot me off of that skywalk on that shithole, Cerberus is watching me closer than ever. So yeah, if staying alive means I have to do what they want, I’m going to fucking do it.” Shepard seethed with fury as she stalked forward, pressing a finger into Garrus’s chest with as much indignation as her smaller stature afforded her. Now that she stood merely inches away, Garrus could get a closer look. On the right side of her neck was a thin, almost invisible, scar an inch long. Unable to stifle his curiosity, Garrus reached up, brushing one taloned finger across the soft flesh of skin and the scar that graced it. Shepard flinched but didn’t move away, the anger softening on her face. “What are you doing?”

“What is this from?” Shepard shook her head. 

“I don’t know. A tracking device probably. Like I said, they keep close tabs on me.”

No, Garrus wasn’t sure that that’s what it was at all. If he had to hazard a guess, it was something else entirely, something more terrifying and catastrophic. Perhaps Shepard was never really in control. It seemed obvious the more Garrus thought about it. A control implant was definitely right up Cerberus’s alley. An implant explained why all her familiar habits were obvious to him now, how she went from cold blooded killer to some resemblance of the former spectre. It also explained why she didn’t remember anything: either they blocked the memories or erased them completely. Garrus hoped that it wasn’t the latter; he wasn’t sure if he could stand being near her anymore if it were. 

“Shepard-”

“Was that my name? Before?”

“Yes. Well, your full name was Jane Shepard. What do they call you now?”

“They don’t call me anything.” She possessed no identity outside of being an entity of death and destruction, no name to even refer to herself as. Cerberus stripped Shepard of everything she used to be and replaced her with Shepard version two missing the pieces they didn’t find useful anymore. “Were we…?”

Garrus dropped his hand back to his side as soon as the words were out of her mouth. He didn’t want to confuse her even more. As much as he wanted to say yes, to lie and convince her that they once were together, if Garrus was going to gain her trust again, he had to tell her the truth. Even if it reopened the wound in his heart. 

“Oh, uh. No, nothing like that.” He scratched the back of his head nervously when a small knowing smile worked its way onto Shepard’s face, her green eyes glimmering with amusement. Despite everything that happened, she still had the uncanny ability to make Garrus uncomfortable with barely any effort.

“Sure.” Shepard zipped up the leather jacket she wore, shielding herself from the drop in temperature to match the simulated twilight above them. Garrus wasn’t sure what to think of their whole conversation; Shepard had sought him out and hadn’t tried to kill him. Perhaps there was a chance she was still in there after all. She turned and started walking away, hands stuffed in her pockets. Before getting too far down the alley, Shepard stopped and looked over her shoulder. “See you later.”

And just as she had appeared, before Garrus could stop her, Shepard was gone, leaving him standing alone in a darkened alley, clutching a cold, half-eaten pastry. 


	3. Part 3

Keeping tabs on Shepard took very little effort once Garrus uncovered her connection to Cerberus. While it was safe to assume that she wasn’t responsible for the disappearance of entire human colonies, other events had her name written all over them. A week after she followed him into the alley, a ship’s worth of Batarian slavers came up missing, only to be found the next day with their heads severed and laid carefully outside a human’s home, rather incriminatingly. The list went on and on. He kept recordings of the news bits, when they actually came up in the news anyway. No one reported about the culprit, but that was to be expected. Cerberus covered Shepard’s tracks as quickly as they appeared. None of her escapades brought her back to the Citadel and Garrus kept busy with one investigation after another for Sparatus that he didn’t have the time to try and follow her. He only had inklings of ideas of where Shepard would be going next, confirmed once the news reports rolled in.

Garrus spent so much of his time trying to wrap his head around the idea of Shepard being controlled, brainwashed, by Cerberus and found it difficult to face. After everything she gave up and all her years of service, even dying for fucks sake, and Cerberus still had the audacity to take it away from her like it was nothing. They’d turned her into a slave to do their bidding, molding her into someone to take the fall when things went south. He needed to figure out a way to help Shepard, whatever that might mean. Removing the implant was an option, though the possibility of that happening was probably slim. Garrus would have to find someone he trusted enough to do it and the list of people he trusted to save Shepard was non-existent at that point.

All of his research on the matter turned up very little; even running away was only a temporary solution. Whoever watched her, the one who kept her under Cerberus influence, had to be within a certain range in order to maintain their control over Shepard. Surely with enough distance the effects would be diminished, or so Garrus hoped. From the few credible sources he was able to gather information from, removal was the best option to gain complete freedom from the controlling party. And that wasn’t really an option until he saw Shepard again and talked to her. There was nothing to say that she would even agree to it either.

Garrus bored a hole into the mountain sunset painting hanging on the wall across from his bed. His rifle and pistol lay in pieces spread across his bed, ready to be packed. Sparatus had passed word along that he wanted an eye of his own on Horizon. A human was also there, though Garrus didn’t know who, presumably trying to find out why so many human colonies were disappearing. It took very little prompting on Sparatus’s part; Garrus was ready to find out what exactly was happening to the colonies. Along with his rifle and pistol, Garrus packed a spare pair of civvies, his old omni tool, and a set of dog tags.

The ride to Horizon passed so fleetingly that Garrus barely had any time to ponder Shepard's situation. If she showed up, if she did anything to endanger civilians, Garrus would be forced to fulfill his duty. He told himself that it wasn’t Shepard, not really, but that did nothing to quench the river of stress that coursed through him. Could he kill Shepard if it came down to it? Garrus swore again and again that his love for Shepard would never interfere with his responsibility to the Council and to all the people his position represented. Pointing the gun was easy. And now that saving her was possible, pulling the trigger was a sickening concept. But who knew if she really wanted saving. Garrus wasn’t so jaded that he thought that Shepard would immediately join him if he helped her regain her memory and control of her life. Of course that’s what he wanted to happen, but that was about as likely as a krogan being on the Council. Wishful thinking never got him anywhere, anyway.

Horizon’s colonists were hostile, pointedly ignoring Garrus unless he addressed them directly. Though they pointedly deflected his probing about the human agent, it was clear everyone resented their presence. Whoever the human was, they too were unwelcome on Horizon just as Garrus was. Frustrated, he wondered what Sparatus expected him to find there, aside from sideways looks and glares from civilians. Whoever the agent was, Garrus mused sarcastically that they would bond over Horizon's rejection. He sure wasn’t thrilled with the idea of waiting around for whatever, or whomever, was causing the colonies to go missing. The assignment was indefinite according to the message he received from the turian councilor. Garrus hoped something happened sooner rather than later so he could return his focus to finding Shepard.

“I’ll be damned; Garrus Vakarian!”

Garrus whipped around. He’d recognize the voice of Ashley Williams anywhere. No wonder the colonists were antsy; if Ashley was still the same as before, her brash, snappy attitude no doubt rubbed them the wrong way. But underneath that surface, Garrus knew existed a woman just as strong as Shepard who only wanted to prove herself.

“Ash, good to see you.” He shook her offered hand, watching the tight smile grow on her face. Their rocky relationship improved a little with the shared grief of losing a role model like Shepard, when Ashley’s distaste of aliens transitioned into tolerance and then slowly to friendship, all the while Garrus had started to build a wall between himself and humans. Time chiseled those walls away again, but many heated discussions between the pair left them at odds after meeting for drinks to grieve over Shepard’s death.

“Wish I could say the same.” Ashley beckoned for Garrus to follow and started quickly walking deeper into the colony. “Listen, I don’t have a lot of time. The turrets aren’t calibrated right and we’ve got word that Horizon is next to get hit. I don’t know why you’re here, and I don’t care at this point, but if you can get those turrets up and running, I would be grateful.”

They came to a stop in front of one of the turrets, a newer GARDIAN model no doubt provided by the Alliance to defend the colony. Several paces to the turret’s left stood a twin, just as tall and menacing. The usual quiet hum of an active turret was missing- the otherwise activity of the colony unnerving Garrus. Something didn’t sit right. Garrus made short work of the access ladder and watched from the platform as Ashley rushed to question a nearby colonist.

Everything about the turret’s set up was completely wrong. Whomever installed it miscalculated the firing algorithms so incompetently that it was laughable. This was what the Alliance gave the colonies to defend themselves? Pitiful. Garrus began working on the turret’s control module, making adjustments wherever he could. He doubted he would be able to get it up to his standards in time, judging by the desperate tone of Ashley’s voice when she asked for help. Something was better than nothing.

Minutes passed while Garrus worked through the turrets’ programming, untangling the poorly written coding and algorithms. An unearthly, explosive roar tore his attention in a different direction. A massive ship, part organic and metallic, descended from the sky. The ship was unlike anything Garrus had ever seen before, comparable in size only to the Destiny Ascension. But it was quite obvious this particular ship wasn’t the vanguard of the leading figures of Citadel space.

The first scream came minutes later, followed immediately by a second, and then a third, until it seemed the entire colony was shrieking in terror. From Garrus’s vantage point, he watched as a swarm of _something_ enveloped the colonists one by one, leaving them frozen in place before they moved onto the next. He was confident that whatever was attacking the colonists came from that ship. A second, much smaller ship, a frigate, landed not too far from Garrus’s own ship. From where he stood, Garrus watched as three humans exited the ship, all dressed in matching black armor and helmets.

His breath hitched in his throat at the thought of one of them being Shepard. He shook the thought from his head, instead focusing on the current chaos. Garrus slid down the ladder and ducked into cover behind a prefab that hadn’t been finished yet. He peeked around the corner. Several unidentifiable aliens walked around the frozen colonists, prodding them to make sure they were truly immobilized. One of the aliens loaded a colonist onto a pad that hovered a foot off of the ground and started to escort it in the direction of the organic ship. Ashley’s paralyzed body lay up ahead, separated from the aliens by two other colonists. There wasn’t much time for Garrus to make a move; he needed to act now if he had any chance of saving her.

Just as Garrus stepped out of cover to dash toward the alien, shots fired from behind another building. Biotics threw one of the aliens up in the air before bringing it crashing back down to the earth. No doubt it was one of the humans he saw only moments ago. With two of the aliens dead, Garrus aimed his pistol at the remaining one, taking it out with a quick shot. With the coast clear, Garrus rushed forward to where Ashley lay. Her eyes moved wildly back and forth, watching while Garrus tried to find a way to free her of whatever left her unable to move. Nothing. Without knowing what the swarm had done to her and the other colonists, Garrus couldn’t undo their work. Garrus squeezed Ashley’s hand in the unspoken promise that he would return for her.

After collecting his rifle from his ship, Garrus picked his way through the colony. He ducked into buildings to hide from the invading aliens, hoping that the work he had done on the turrets was enough to get them up and running properly. Otherwise the aliens were going to collect every single colonist and load them up onto the enormous ship. There was no way he could take out a ship that large on his own with just a sniper rifle and a pistol. If he could find the Cerberus agents though, they might be of some assistance. Or they might try to kill him. Garrus checked the turret program he linked to his omni-tool; it wasn’t ready yet.

The ground trembled beneath him from the exertion of the alien ship’s power drilling into the earth. After carefully dodging the aliens and taking out as many as he could, Garrus found himself in the center of the colony, a courtyard centered around some sort of command tower. An uneasy silence surrounded him as he walked toward the tower, pausing between each step that he took. Garrus approached the tower and a large screen came to life. He skimmed through the programming, quickly coming to the realization that it was what controlled the turrets, not the computer modules at the turrets’ bases. The little amount of work he had done to calibrate the lasers seemed to be enough, as all the turrets needed now were to be charged before they would be able to take out the alien ship.

It seemed to be almost instantaneously that chaos erupted when Garrus finished with the command tower. From what appeared to be out of nowhere, a dozen enemies started toward Garrus, most of them unrecognizable. The husks were familiar, their jerky, inhuman movements and low growling reminding him of the Thorian creepers on Feros all those years ago. Garrus ducked into cover behind several crates, taking headshots when he could, aiming elsewhere when they moved too quickly for him to keep up. They were easy enough to finish off, however their companions possessed weapons that that were all aimed and firing at Garrus’s head. He still counted seven of them through his scope, which wasn’t an impossible number to face alone, but not easy either.

_“You cannot stop us.”_

A deep, synthetic sounding voice boomed across the courtyard, reverberating all the way to Garrus’s bones. Whatever this was, it was more than just the abduction of humans. Someone, or something, had to be using the humans for some greater deed. But what was Cerberus’s part in all of it? Surely they weren’t working with these aliens and helping them with whatever their ultimate goal was. Garrus didn’t know much about Cerberus, but he knew enough to tell that this was not something they would do.

Then again, he also once believed the dead stayed that way.

_“I am the Harbinger of your ascendence.”_  Garrus aimed his rifle at the alien, Harbinger, and fired, striking them square in the chest. Harbinger faltered for half a second before resuming its daunting march forward. A quick glance around the courtyard told Garrus that he was going to be surrounded soon if he didn’t hurry; several of the bug-looking aliens he saw earlier were now trying to flank him on both sides. Shit, shit, shit! Pinned down behind the crates, Garrus used everything he had at his disposal to take the aliens out.

Garrus launched an omni-grenade at a group of three aliens that were getting too close to where he hid. He heard their shrieks of pain as the omni-grenade exploded at their feet, sending them all flying backward. Now to focus on Harbinger before it got any closer to him. A flash of pain tore through Garrus’s shoulder after he stood up, knocking him immediately back down to the ground. The wound burned unlike anything Garrus remembered ever feeling before, tearing through his armor and hide to the soft skin underneath. Garrus struggled with his omni-tool, trying to find the command to tell his suit to dispense medi-gel to his wound. The struggle felt minutes long from the way the pain in his shoulder kept him from raising his arm high enough to use his omni-tool.

_“Turian; you are considered… too primitive.”_ Medi-gel finally found its way to Garrus’s wound, the soothing cool taking away the burning and searing pain from just a moment ago. Garrus rolled his shoulder slowly, testing it out. There was only a slight twinge now, masked by the medi-gel and its healing effects. It was time to take this bastard out. He just hoped it didn’t kill him before he had the chance to see Shepard again. Garrus lifted his rifle again, aiming at Harbinger’s head, when a shot echoed through the courtyard. A second, then a third, followed, until Harbinger lay on the ground, their head more of a pit than an actual head. Dumbstruck by the suddenness of Harbinger’s death, Garrus almost didn’t notice the three Cerberus agents crossing the courtyard, killing the remaining aliens on their way to Garrus.

“Looks like you needed a little help.” The taller of the three, a male, spoke, his assault rifle relaxed in his hands. Garrus could barely make out the man’s face through the dark, almost black, tint of his helmet. His companions shifted on their feet, watching for more enemies.

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“Are the turrets ready?” Garrus checked his omni-tool for the turrets’ status, noting that they were three quarters of the way charged. He informed the male Cerberus of that fact, despite the fact that he didn’t fully trust the man, or his two companions. They had saved him after all; that had to mean something, even if was just common decency. “We have to take out that ship before the Collectors run off with all the colonists.”

Collectors didn’t normally go after entire colonies though. From what Garrus could remember, the Collectors had strange requests for their captives: two dozen left-handed salarians, quarian twins, and more recently, human biotics. Yet, here they were, according to Cerberus of course.

“Miranda, how long before they’re finished clearing the colony?” The man addressed one of his companions, the shorter of the two. Her synthetic voice rang out, quick and commanding. Garrus couldn’t place her accent; Shepard had told him once that there were more human languages and cultures than she could count.

“We’ve got twenty minutes at the most. If we don’t-”

A bright shot of light interrupted them, scorching the earth between their feet. Garrus flew backward, crashing onto his back from the suddenness of the attack. He scrambled into cover next to the third companion. They remained silent as they righted themself, reaching for the assault rifle on their back. Garrus’s eyes followed their movement, widening when he recognized the familiar weapon. Somehow Cerberus recovered the rifle Garrus gave Shepard before he left the Normandy and rejoined C-Sec. He built the stock himself, installed all the best mods he could afford, and painstakingly calibrated it so that the chances of a misfire were near impossible. How did he not see it sooner?

“Shepard?”

She paused for only a moment before returning her attention to her weapon, checking the clips. Miranda swore under her breath to their left, muttering something indecipherable to their male companion. Garrus was certain that they knew who he was, and what he was to Shepard. One of them had to be the person responsible for controlling her implant, or else he would have garnered a different response from Shepard. At least he hoped so. He had to get her away from them both if he wanted any chance of recovering the woman he once knew. Garrus refused to leave Horizon without Shepard by his side; he didn’t think he could survive seeing her once every few months. Even if that meant giving up his livelihood, he would do it for Shepard.

Garrus' heart cracked at the indifference Shepard showed him once more. The power of the implant must have been strong to make her forget the moment in the alley or their fight on Omega. If she went rogue, would the memories come back with time? Would she be able to remember him at all if they did? He couldn’t place too much hope in the idea, but that hope did help to heal the fractures and fissures inside him when he thought about the possibilities.

“Shit, it’s one of those Praetorians!” The man ducked his head down as something flew above them, circling around the courtyard while buzzing loudly. Garrus had no idea what a Praetorian was, but he didn’t like the sound of it if it had Cerberus worried. Shepard popped up and began firing her gun, her aim just as precise as Garrus remembered. The Praetorian seemed unaffected by Shepard’s gunfire, its shields taking all the damage. Shepard jumped over the crate, dashing forward in the Praetorian’s direction. While the Praetorian was distracted, Garrus, Miranda and the man rose from cover and all started to fire their own weapons at the flying creature. After a high powered shot from Garrus’s rifle sent the Praetorian plummeting to the ground in an unholy symphony of screeches, Shepard halted and took her turn shooting at the creature.

“It’s not taking any damage! We have to get it back up into the air!” Shepard jumped onto a raised deck near the far end of the courtyard, crouching for cover. With Shepard separated from the rest of them, Garrus felt a tidal wave of anxiety begin to rush toward him. He promised to always watch her back, but dammit it all if she didn’t make it so fucking difficult to do that sometimes. From day one she had seemed to trust him implicitly, launching herself into chaos and destruction, assuming, or rather knowing, that Garrus would be behind her. Shepard’s mad dash toward the Praetorian so viscerally reminded Garrus of his old friend that it only further convinced him that she was in there somewhere, underneath all the Cerberus influence and brainwashing.

The Praetorian writhed around on the ground, glowing an effervescent blue. It launched itself back into the sky after several moments, buzzing angrily and flying around searching for a target. Garrus shifted his weight, waiting for an opportunity. To his right, Miranda and her companion spoke quietly, glancing back and forth between Garrus, Shepard, and the Praetorian. If they were going to stop the Collectors from taking the whole colony, they needed to hurry up and move now. Spurred into action, Garrus did the only thing he could think of. Since he didn’t have any sticky grenades on him, he resorted to what he did have: a shrapnel grenade of illegal grade that he picked up on Omega after running into Shepard for the first time. If he could cross his fingers right then, Garrus would. Once he threw the grenade, it would be a toss up, either definitive proof that he was right, or that maybe he was wrong after all. He didn’t really have much of a choice anyway since time was starting to run out for all of them.

Garrus wound his arm back as far as he could despite the twinging pain from his earlier battle and threw the grenade at the Praetorian. He watched as it soared through the sky, up and up until it was a small speck in the sky. The closer it flew toward the Praetorian, the more nervous Garrus became as he waited. A pop of gun fire sounded from the raised deck where Shepard hid. Garrus let out the breath he had been holding and watched with satisfaction as the bullet hit the grenade in mid-air. Shrapnel and gunpowder exploded with a magnificent bang in the Praetorian’s face. It screeched and howled in obvious pain as the shrapnel pierced its softer parts.

There was no doubt in Garrus’s mind now that this was his Shepard buried underneath two years of corruption and control. Shepard launched herself over the side of the deck, firing her assault rifle at the flailing Praetorian. With each bullet that struck the creature, it became more and more angry. Garrus stared in horror as the Praetorian’s head began to glow a bright blue again though he knew that it was no shield. He leapt over the crate he had ducked behind, sprinting to get a better shot at the creature’s head. Time slowed around him, his limbs refusing to cooperate with what his mind wanted them to do. Shepard seemed unaffected by the Praetorian’s eminent attack, determination permanently fixed on her face as she swapped an empty clip for a new one. He wondered what it felt like to be staring death square in the face and refuse to give up; weaker men, which Garrus included himself in, would have already accepted their fate.

He couldn’t lose Shepard again.

The steely obstinate set of her body and her unforgiving resolve frightened Garrus while he fumbled to line up another shot at the Praetorian. How much of her was being controlled by Cerberus right now? Could Shepard’s two companions be pushing her to stand her ground? Were they not afraid to lose her too? Shepard was reckless, sure, but this was a new level to her that Garrus had never seen before and could only blame on Cerberus. Garrus scrambled for thought as a deadly blue shot of light exploded from the Praetorian’s head in a precise strike in Shepard’s direction. Shepard stood only a few yards away from him. He dropped his rifle, no longer possessing the time or patience to continue fucking with it while Shepard was seconds away from being killed, again.

“SHEPARD!” She flinched, her attention turning from the Praetorian and toward Garrus, who hurtled toward her at an ungodly speed. Adrenaline coursed through Garrus’s body as he raced the blue light firing at Shepard. With one final bounding step, Garrus threw himself forward in an effort to knock her out of the way. Just as the light should have hit Shepard, Garrus pushed her to the ground behind some fortunately placed cover. He heard a scream that was not his own as the beam of light caught the side of his face and sent him crashing down, landing next to Shepard in a crumpled heap.

If he died there, it all would have been worth it, Garrus thought to himself. Despite all the unanswered questions and the constant wondering, saving Shepard felt like redemption for the one time he wasn’t there. He still regretted keeping secrets, but it wasn’t fair to himself or to Shepard to express them now. It served no purpose until she remembered him on her own. Hell, maybe one day she would, after all of this ended and if Cerberus decided to let her go. Garrus only wished he could see those days.

In the moment that Garrus accepted that he would most likely die on Horizon, the universe narrowed its scope and only existed in the space where he and Shepard lay side by side. The Praetorian was so far out of the realm of where they lay that Garrus was no longer concerned about it. Shepard was safe and she was there with him and that was all that mattered to him. Garrus reached for Shepard’s hand as she came to, his hand falling limply beside hers from the strain. Every part of his body ached to the point where he couldn’t pinpoint the source of his injuries.

He was disappointed that his life didn’t flash before him like in the trashy human vids Shepard loved so much. Garrus forced himself to unpack that box that he had tried to shove all of his feelings about Shepard into, acknowledging the good memories he had of her. There were countless memories that he finally felt comfortable recounting. Messages exchanged, life stories shared, jokes explained, they were all a consolation now that he refused to hide from them any longer. Would she remember the way it felt when they danced together after saving the Citadel, her hands thrown carelessly around his cowl, head tilted back while she laughed? Did Cerberus take away the desperate, drunk, kisses behind that same club, Garrus’s hands roaming over her beautiful, scarred body? There had been so many opportunities and now all Garrus felt was guilt and regret. Guilt that he didn’t say anything then and that he couldn’t say anything now. Regret that he forbade himself from thinking about all of that for two and a half years. Despite it all, Garrus was content.

Shepard leaned over him, frantic and shouting something that he couldn’t hear no matter how hard he tried. She pressed the palm of her hand to the uninjured side of his face, clutching his hand tightly with the other. Recognition flared in her eyes and Garrus knew that this was his Shepard with him. Tears streamed down her dirt stained cheeks as she spoke inaudibly. Fortunately, Garrus knew enough of the human language to make out the one word her lips formed, the one word that she repeated over and over again as if it were a prayer that would save him.

_Garrus._

  



End file.
